Tickets are now available for PORRIDGE RADIO at Rescue Rooms!
When Porridge Radio formed in 2014 – a decade ago – being in a band was the very last thing that London-born Dana Margolin expected to do. Studying anthropology at the University of Sussex, Dana began performing her songs on her own at local open mic nights, before assembling a full band – taking in Georgie Stott on keyboards and backing vocals, Sam Yardley on drums and keyboards, and former bassist Maddie Ryall (who departed in 2023, replaced by Dan Hutchins). Their debut album – Rice, Pasta and Other Fillers (2016) was followed by Every Bad (2020), which was shortlisted for the Mercury Prize and acclaimed by The Guardian as “uncompromisingly brilliant.” Later, Waterslide, Diving Board, Ladder to the Sky (2022) became their first UK Top 40 Album Chart success.
After 2022 – by some distance the band’s busiest year of live shows to date – had finally calmed, the suddenly quiet beginning of 2023 was a decisive moment for Dana. “I got home having been so sad and so tired for so long, and running from that sadness using work and exhaustion to the point of distraction, and then suddenly I wasn’t on tour all the time,” she remembers, “I was just sitting in my room.” This became a period of reflection for the songwriter who had not stopped for the best part of a decade, and had knotty questions about identity, creativity and family to unpack. “I come from a family of workaholics,” smiles Dana, “it’s that, and it’s art, it’s not just work. It’s my whole life.” Dana wanted to work out a way forward – how do you retain creativity, without harming yourself in the process?
When Joni Mitchell was once asked about writer’s block, she argued in favour of a creative “crop rotation” to keep going. That means, when you fall out of love with one thing, work on another and your creativity will find a way to heal itself. Dana Margolin began creating in new and different ways to bring herself back from the emotional experience of what was obviously a bad case of burnout.
As well as the painting that has been a crucial part of her creative life throughout her career (Dana has painted or directed the artwork for every Porridge Radio album), she composed the soundtrack for a BBC Radio 4 show with her bandmate Sam Yardley. She completed a solo UK tour playing new songs on her own just like in the old open mic days. She started a Substack, writing assuredly at length on anything from books that she has read, art shows she has attended or the general need to bear witness to the world around you. And, importantly, she began thinking more about poetry. Sure, Dana had always written poetry, but had filed it away as something different from her Porridge Radio craft. “There were things I was doing in songwriting,” says Dana, “that I felt I could become better at.”
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